The Kingmaking

by Helen Hollick

  Arthur chuckled. “You make your land sound like a wayward mistress!”

  Cunedda gave another small smile. Arthur would find out for himself one day, the gods willing. Held land was more than a mistress – was whore, wife, daughter, mother, all of those, with all their tempers and loves and smiles and sorrows.

  Arthur’s eyes had a question, one eye half closed, the other eyebrow raised. “Why have you come?”

  Clearing his throat – this would not be well met – Cunedda placed the tips of his fingers together. “I will be open with you, lad, no shuffling around the arena exchanging feints.”

  Arthur nodded.

  “I suggest, Arthur, you offer your sword to Vortigern.”

  A moment’s silence – nothing moving, no sound, no breath – then the fine glass flew from the table shattering into tiny pieces as it hit the floor. Arthur’s chair toppled backwards as he exploded to his feet in a torrent of abusive language, some words new even to Cunedda’s ears.

  Waiting for the violent diatribe to subside, Cunedda sat patiently; the reaction had not been unexpected. Calmly he continued, “Come summer you will be seven and ten years of age, a man grown, the son of a war lord. Yet you sit here, idling away your time picking grapes and pressing wine.”

  Arthur had been about to add further disparaging remarks, but Cunedda slammed the flat of his hand on the table, his expression fierce. “What do you intend, boy? To be a vine grower or a soldier?” Allowing him no time to reply, he went on, “You need experience of war, of leading men. How are you to gain it here?”

  His pride stung, Arthur countered, “I serve with the local militia. A month back we sent scurrying a party of Saex who were attempting to set up a settlement to the south.”

  Cunedda sipped his wine. “Sit down. Let us talk of men’s business like men.”

  Glowering, Arthur sat.

  “I have heard you train hard with the militia, that you do well.”

  Gruff. “You have sharp ears then.”

  “Would you rather I left you to rot?” The rebuke was sharp, to the point. Cunedda refilled his glass, handed it to Arthur, who took it and drank. With sympathy the Lord of Gwynedd took a breath and continued. “Where will you gain experience of war if not in Britain with Vortigern’s British men?”

  Arthur stared into the fading red glow in the western sky, his lips pouting. Where, indeed!

  “Without experience, Arthur, men will laugh when you come to claim what is yours. Aside,” Cunedda spread a hand, “if we do not soon drive out these Saex, there will be nothing left for you to claim.”

  Arthur answered, “I thought of approaching the King of Gaul, he and Uthr were friends. I have met with his son several times, we are of similar age,” but he spoke with only half a heart. He did not, in all truth, really wish to fight to save some other king’s land. Though he was reluctant to admit it, at least fighting for Vortigern would, indirectly, mean fighting for himself.

  Reading Arthur accurately Cunedda offered, “Working for your own ends would give you more of an advantage.”

  The hot reply was defiant, anger and resentment rising again. “Not if I need bow before Vortigern.”

  “You do not have to bow before him.” Cunedda could be so damned persuasive, particularly when he spoke calmly, placidly, somehow making Arthur’s raging seem like childish temper.

  “Gather those men who once followed your father, and their sons, all who would follow the Dragon.” Cunedda was leaning forward, eager, excited. “Offer their swords, under yours, to Vortigern. Gain time. Get to know the ways of war, and the hills and valleys of Britain; the marshes, the coast. The people. Let them get to know you.” His smile for future planning crinkled to his eyes. “Befriend the tyrant, tell him the disagreement was between him and the father you did not know. Make him believe you are content with holding these estates, that you want nothing more. Offer what you can, bribe where you can. Sit, listen, watch and learn.”

  Petulant, reluctant to acknowledge Cunedda might be right, Arthur rasped, “And what if Vortigern will not accept me and takes a dagger to my back at the first opportunity?” He slammed his fist on the table. “Damn it, I am the Pendragon! He will not trust one of that title for a single handspan.”

  “Of course he will not – no more than he trusts me – yet we get along reasonably well, if warily.” Draining his goblet, Cunedda laid his hand on Arthur’s arm. “Vortigern will take you and, providing you step carefully, he will tolerate you.”

  “Why? Tell me that. Why will he?” Arthur slumped back in his chair, arms folded, bottom lip thrust out. Stupid idea. Might as well fall on his own sword and make an end of it rather than offer himself to that murdering bastard.

  “Why? Because Vortigern would prefer to keep you where he can see you. Where he can be certain you are not raising an army against him. Also, he’s a desperate man. He has few British officers with a talent for soldiering. Even he has no wish to turn his entire army over to the Saxons.”

  “Are you listening to yourself, Cunedda? You seriously expect me to fight under that – that toad who murdered my father?”

  “Aye.”

  There was no point in saying anything further, for that was precisely what Cunedda was expecting. They argued some more, Arthur offering protests, Cunedda countering with adequate answers. Both knew Cunedda spoke sense, that Arthur had no choice. He needed experience, he needed to learn, and neither would come his way here in Less Britain.

  “I would willingly have you with me, lad,” Cunedda sighed, as a final thrust, “but were you to join with me I’d have more Saex in my mountains than there are blades of grass. Vortigern would never permit it.”

  Mid-afternoon the next day, a trading ship lifted her oars and glided downriver making for the estuary. Aboard her, Cunedda, heading home, and by the turn of the month another ship carried Arthur, his cousin and foster brother, Cei, and sixty seasoned swordsmen to Britain and mercenary service under the tyrant King, Vortigern.

  April 453

  XX

  Councillors drifted from the dilapidated basilica of Londinium in knots of twos and threes; huddled groups talking softly to one another, exchanging muted grievances, mostly against the King.

  Arthur sighed exaggeratedly and tipped his stool back on its rear legs. “There’s only one thing I dread more than a full meeting of Council.”

  Seated beside him, arms folded on the table, Cei looked with lazy enquiry at his foster brother and cousin, asked, “And what might that be?”

  Arthur stood, scraping the stool over the cracked flooring. He stretched cramped muscles, reaching his arms up towards the equally cracked ceiling and yawned. “The next meeting!” He grinned and thumped his friend between the shoulder blades. “What a damned waste of time! There are days when I regret my decision to throw my soul in with Vortigern.” He walked a few paces, pointed in the direction of the open door, declared with passion, “We ought to be out there, Cei, fighting these seawolves who come to steal our cattle and land, not sitting here muttering about it.”

  Cei nodded agreement, opened his mouth to reply, found another voice cut him short.

  “Aye, but try telling our beloved King!”

  Arthur spun round with a yelp of delight and clasped the newcomer’s hand in greeting, jerking the arm up and down as if it were some rusted old water pump.

  “Cunedda! You have come!” He motioned a thumb over his shoulder. “You have just missed the first pointless discussion.”

  Cunedda’s hands were clasping Arthur’s arms in firm greeting. “If only I had ridden faster.” They all three laughed at his open sarcasm.

  “The Saex sit easy on their backsides and wait for us to talk ourselves into old age and beyond,” said Cei sardonically, draining his ale tankard and setting it down on the table.

  “All possibilities need exploring before action is committed.” Cunedda so perfectly mimicked Vortigern’s much uttered phrase, even to the slight slurring of the Latin, a legacy of a s
word wound to his left jaw.

  “Meaning,” Arthur translated through the ensuing laughter, “let us not rush into anything that’s likely to cost over much from my treasury.” He gripped the older man’s hand tighter. “Ah, Cunedda, it’s good to see you.” His smile broadened. “I was not keen on persuading this Council into seeing sense on my own.”

  “’Tis as good to see you again, boy.” Placing his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, Cunedda studied the young man before him. “You are taller than your father, though much like him.” He approved of what he saw. A confident young man with an alert eagerness and self-assurance. Different colouring from Uthr, who had had quite black hair, Arthur’s being more brown with a slight curl, but the same family trait of a long, prominent nose and that same piercing eye.

  A leader of men, Uthr, superb in a fight but never one for patience or tact, too often a raging bull. At eighteen, it was too early to tell whether the same leadership qualities were strong in this lad. Cunedda frowned, his brows creasing into a deeper, more penetrating search of Arthur’s animated face. Something simmered beneath the surface of those brown eyes beaming back at him, something ready to spill out when the heat was raised. This Pendragon possessed a more profound shrewdness than Uthr ever had, a sparkle that would rise to brilliance with the catch of sunlight.

  Cunedda was reminded of an uncut diamond he had once seen. A thing of great value, he had been told, though for his life he could not understand why. A rough-hewn, rather dull, almost ugly object. And then the same stone after the jewelsmith had been at it; a gem so exquisite, so perfect, there were no words to describe the beauty that flashed and blazed within its cut and polished facets. Arthur reminded him of that diamond: rough-edged, unpolished, but beneath those disguising layers… ah, beneath…

  Suddenly remembering his manners, Arthur indicated Cei, jolting Cunedda from his scrutiny. “You remember Cei, eldest son of Ectha, my uncle and foster father? He is a second right arm to me.”

  “We met briefly when I visited Less Britain.”

  “Everything about it was brief, as I recall,” Arthur growled. A pause; recollections of that unexpected visit. And the consequences.

  “So,” Cunedda said, “Vortigern has not put a dagger in your back? He accepted you, as I predicted he would.”

  Arthur’s lip and nose wrinkled in distaste. “Na, no dagger. We have, shall we say, an uneasy understanding.” He laughed suddenly. “You leave my back alone and I’ll leave yours alone.”

  As the slight moment of tension slipped past, Cunedda nodded and grasped Cei’s hand, pleased to meet the young man again. “I have heard tell of your exploits with Arthur, they reach even as far as my distant mountains of Gwynedd.”

  Cei’s laugh was a deep-throated chuckle of wry amusement. “The blame for those lay firmly with Arthur; he’s the planner I merely follow orders. Though one or two of his schemes have turned out well.”

  Arthur interrupted with a snort of indignation. “Well? They are brilliant, man!”

  Cei raised his eyebrows, unabashed. “All? What about last September – Glas Dhue?”

  Rubbing his clean-shaven chin, Arthur grimaced then casually placed an arm around Cunedda’s shoulders, steering the older man aside. “How’s your brood? Are your sons with you?”

  Cunedda roared his delight. “No need to turn the subject. I heard of Glas Dhue also. A brilliant what? Failure?”

  Arthur scowled, then smiled good humouredly, appreciating the jest at his expense. “Had it not been for that sudden deluge turning firm ground into marsh, we would have sent fifty Saex into oblivion.”

  Understanding the frustrations of an unexpected change in the weather, Cunedda nodded. “You cannot win all the time, lad; learn by your mistakes, take defeat positively. Your father had his share of failure,” he added sombrely, then smiled swiftly. It was well to turn the subject on occasion. “Three of my offspring are with me.” He glanced at the few remaining men and said softly, “There’s much to talk upon, in private.” He glanced meaningfully at those last men who were noting with interest this friendly exchange between Lion and Dragon.

  Few had forgotten where Gwynedd’s loyalty lay.

  Louder, for the benefit of curious ears, Cunedda remarked, “We attend Vortigern’s welcoming entertainment this evening. Will you join me, Arthur? Cei also, of course.”

  Thanking him for the invitation, Cei made his apologies, pleading an alternative engagement.

  Arthur leered. “With that well-endowed widow, no doubt?” he slapped Cei’s shoulder. “Vortigern’s feasting would be more rewarding.”

  Countering swiftly, Cei retorted, “The King cannot offer such large,” he made a suggestive motion with his hands, “ripe fruit!”

  Laughing together the three men pushed their way through the crowded exit out into the open forum, where they took their leave, followed by more than a few speculative glances.

  Vortigern’s palace had seen better days when it had been the residence of the Roman Governor of Britain. Years of neglect had traded its opulence for cracked walls and peeling plaster. Rugs and spread furs hid fragmenting mosaic floors; the hypocaust heating was blocked and useless. Still, who noticed crumbling walls and the occasional hole in the ceiling when good wine flowed and excellent food was served?

  They were all there, Vortigern and his kin: his sons by his first wife; the second wife, Rowena, with her father, Hengest the Saxon, and his son; the daughter born to Rowena and Vortigern, the Princess Winifred. The King’s guests were the Elders and leaders of the governing territories of Britain who made up the Grand Council, some of whom had brought their wives and families, sons, brothers and uncles, as well as officers of the King’s army and bodyguard, British and Saxon. A hotch-potch of nobility and rough chieftains, intent on clawing their way from tribal landholding to the prospect of eventual petty kingship.

  Arthur ate with enthusiasm: army food was nothing special, the slop served in Londinium taverns as bad, and it was not often Vortigern opened his purse to pay for an extravagance such as this.

  “How is your mother?” Enniaun asked politely, finishing the last of a fine roast fowl.

  “I have no idea.” Arthur selected more meat and bit into it hungrily.

  “You do not keep contact with her then?”

  With mouth full, Arthur replied, “To what end? We never liked each other. My father’s death and my coming to manhood did not alter that.”

  Etern, a man grown now with a moustache as red as his father’s, said with a hint of reproach, “She is your mother.”

  His voice indifferent, Arthur answered, “Childbearing does not make a woman a mother.”

  “But surely, after all these years, now you are acknowledged as…”

  Arthur cut off Etern’s persistent questions quite philosophically. “In childhood I meant nothing to Lady Ygrainne, I mean nothing to her now.” His plate empty, he chose a meat-filled pastry shaped in the form of a sucking pig. As a boy his life had been endorsed by periods of intense misery – the shame at being labelled bastard, the whisperings of speculation. And Morgause. Release came through Uthr’s death. Arthur had understood his father’s need to stay silent; Ygrainne’s too, but not her coolness. It was not within him to forgive her for abandoning him to Morgause.

  “You blame me for my father’s death, don’t you?” Arthur had asked Ygrainne before he left to serve in Vortigern’s army. She had answered quite frankly; “It was because of you I lost him.”

  He had assumed she meant Uthr’s death; only much later did he realise she meant Uthr’s turning to Morgause.

  Pulling at his moustache, Cunedda said thoughtfully, “She and your father were very much in love when Uthr took her from Gorlois.”

  Arthur gave a bark of scornful laughter, scattering golden pastry crumbs from his lips. “Nonsense! He wanted her wealth and her dead father’s estate. Fighting Gorlois was an excuse to hit at Vortigern, fanning the flames of a war that was already brewing. Uthr would have done anything
to further his bid for the kingdom. As would I.” Another trait inherited from his father: cynicism.

  Servants were bringing in the next course, the guests applauding the spectacular arrangements of boar and hare and swan, borne high on silver platters so huge they needed two men to carry them.

  When eating had again commenced, Enniaun asked the Pendragon, his voice lowered, “And how is service with our King?”

  The reply was succinct. “Oh, wonderful! He’s a most uninspiring man.”

  Etern guffawed. “That must keep alive a desire to knock his head from his shoulders.” They laughed, then sobered on remembering their whereabouts.

  “Vortigern treats you well, I hear, almost like one of his own brood?” Enniaun wiped boar meat juice from his dish with a hunk of wheat bread and nodded at Vortigern’s two sullen sons seated at the high table. It was noticeable that they both ignored their father, their manner towards his Saxon wife verging on rudeness.

  “Oh aye.” Arthur stabbed at a portion of hare, busied himself with picking the meat from the bone, kept his expression guarded. “We fight and snarl at each other like whelps over a tossed bone.”

  Pointing in Hengest’s direction, Etern commented, “I’m not impressed by his choice of company.”

  Arthur scowled towards the high table, at the huge Saxon, a great bull-muscled man with arms like oak trees, thighs as sturdy as a ship’s mast, and privy tackle, it was said, as penetrating as a well shot javelin. Unfortunately, the Princess Winifred noticed his expression – and he looked hastily away. Like her mother, that one, a second arrogant and self-opinionated sow. Pretty, though, as her mother had once been, with flaxen hair and fair skin. But a temper like a rutting bear. He chewed at his meat, throwing a quick smile at the young woman sitting beside the princess. Her face came alive at that smile, eyes and mouth smiling back.

  Arthur had come late to the banquet, hurrying and breathless, delayed by the need to tend an injury to his favourite horse. Entering as the guests were summoned to table, he had stood stunned at the sight of Gwenhwyfar waiting with her father and two brothers. He had not expected her to be with Cunedda, was unprepared to see her, a woman grown and so different from the girl he remembered. She had been as flustered as himself, her cheeks flushing pink as he kissed her hand; then their rather awkward embrace, as if greeting a stranger. A pity she was seated as Vortigern’s guest, companion to the royal piglet, Winifred. He dare not glance often in her direction for fear of shifting this persistent throb beneath his bracae to something more noticeable on his face. Why? With other women he made much of his desire, had discovered they found the attention most flattering. With Gwenhwyfar, such crudity seemed obscene. She was beautiful and pure, a maiden to be respected, treated with honour. But by the Blood of the Bull, how he wanted to leap up from this table, cross the room in three strides and kiss her! Not a polite kiss of greeting either, but a slow, lingering kiss that would last for days and take all breath from the world.